Bicton - Sunday

Novice day at Bicton was a lovely day and went very much to plan. 

The Graduate was having his second Novice outing, and came up with all the right answers.  He did a nice dressage and was unlucky only to score 35, he jumped well show jumping for one down, rather weirdly he ended up being given 14 time faults for a plenty fast enough round.  I did object to this but the outcome is irrelevant.  He then took on the cross country well, he jumped clear going all the direct routes, nothing seemed to pose a problem for him. It was overall a good Novice to have under his belt.

It was nice to be riding Reinstated again who I took in the Novice HC for the first time this season,  He was second after the dressage on a score of 26.5, rolled an unlucky pole in the show jumping but jumped well, and went very nicely and clear cross country. 

Helen West and her team really excelled themselves over the three days and had even managed to harrow the course for us, having had a wet day on Friday.  They seemed to really get the cross country courses right with a good difference between Novice and CIC2* which we are seeing less and less these days!  I wish them all the best for their recovery and hope they all felt it was well worth the effort too.